


Lover Man

by ElwritesFanworks



Category: L.A. Noire
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Angst, Awkward Conversations, Awkward First Times, Awkwardness, Blow Jobs, Cigarettes, Deepthroating, Detectives, Fear, Fear of Discovery, First Kiss, First Time, Gentle Kissing, Homophobic Language, Homosexuality, Illegal Activities, Internalized Homophobia, Jazz - Freeform, Law Enforcement, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mixed feelings, Music, Oral Sex, Panic, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Police, Regret, Rough Kissing, Sexual Confusion, Sexual Experimentation, Sexual Tension, Sloppy Makeouts, Smoking, Song Lyrics, Tension, first time giving head, post-coital guilt, tipsy!Stefan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 01:48:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2006370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElwritesFanworks/pseuds/ElwritesFanworks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bekowsky finds out that Leary frequents a gay bar scene. Which is illegal. Yet something stops him from turning his boss in...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Don't ask me why Plops and Babekowsky are raiding an underground gay club. That's totally not a Traffic issue. But fuck it, who needs logic when you have ridiculous porn? (Seriously, the logic is not strong in this one. Don't expect a work of genius. This is mainly the result of me throwing ideas at a wall to see what sticks, and trying to find a way to get Gordon Leary out of his pants.)
> 
> Also, the song I'm referencing is this recording of Lover Man as sung by the iconic Billie Holiday. Just give it a listen and let it tingle all around in your ear canals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thSfGPZGmnQ

* * *

  
_I don't know why but I'm feeling so sad_   
_I long to try something I've never had_   
_Never had no kissin'_   
_Oh, what I've been missin'_   
_Lover man, oh, where can you be?_

It was the kind of case that set Stefan on edge. Cole wasn’t any happier after the briefing, but that was more from a moralistic discomfort than anything else. They sat in uneasy silence in the car as Cole drove to their destination.

“I hate this,” Stefan admitted. Cole raised his eyebrows.

“What do you mean?”

“I hate… intruding. I know it’s the job, but in moments like this, it feels more like an invasion of privacy.”

Cole shrugs.

“It’s the law. If people wanted their privacy respected, they’d get married and settle down like everyone else.”

Stefan sighed heavily.

“I know… it just…” he gestured vaguely.

 _“What_ Bekowsky?”

There was an edge to Cole’s voice now. Stefan shrugged again.

“It makes me uncomfortable,” he stated. Cole nodded.

“It would make any good American uncomfortable.”

That wasn’t what Stefan had meant, exactly, but he was smart enough to quit when he was ahead. It wasn’t as though he had a stake in protecting fruits. He just found the penalties to be a bit severe, given the crime. He’d never tried it on with a man, himself, but he had slept with his share of women who were more trouble than they were worth, all because the little voice downstairs told him to.

The bar, if you could call it that, was in the basement of a munitions factory that had been empty since the war. The entrance was well-hidden – you’d miss it unless you were looking for it. As they got closer, descending a rickety set of stairs, Cole readied his handgun and listened at the door. Stefan kept his weapon holstered, and his ears open.

People were laughing in the safety of their hideaway. Soft murmurs of conversations, mixed with a moody piano, set the scene. It was an intimate little place, but, if the clientele had been different, it would’ve been little more than a call for a warning to get a legitimate liquor license.

“On three,” Cole hissed. Stefan waited out the countdown, and watched Cole kick the door in.

“LAPD, nobody move!” Phelps barked, but of course people started to run. Stefan couldn’t find it in himself to blame them.

“I’ll go after them – you cover these guys,” Stefan called, and followed the fleeing patrons in hot pursuit.

For a place that looked small on the outside, the place was surprisingly spacious. A web of tunnels and crawlspaces and old storage closets kept Bekowsky from outright sprinting, having to constantly turn and dodge and backtrack. When he tripped over the same crack in the floor for the third time, he knew he was well and truly outfoxed.

 _Oh well,_ he thought, and decided to see if he could at least catch one person, to appease his partner. There was a maintenance room down the hall a ways, so he walked towards it. He reached for the doorknob and, at exactly the same moment, the door opened and he found himself face to face with one of the last people he’d have expected to see.

It was his boss, LAPD Captain Gordon Leary, only he didn’t look right. His hair was mussed, and his shirt was buttoned incorrectly. His usual loose posture was replaced by tense muscles, like an animal getting ready to bolt. His face was devoid of any color, a sickly milky hue. His eyes… Stefan had never seen fear on a man’s face like that, not in all his years in the force.

He didn’t have long to think on it, because Leary pushed past him and raced off down the hall.

Stefan didn’t know what to make of it. As he returned to his partner empty-handed, he admitted he could think of a reason for Leary’s behavior, but it was a heavy accusation to make. Maybe he was just passing through, or doing some investigating on his own, after all. Bekowsky tried to ignore the fact that if he’d really believed that, he’d have had no problem telling Phelps. As it was, he kept it a secret.

“Sorry, Phelps. I couldn’t keep up. I lost them.”

Phelps was good about it – he’d gotten some patrons to willingly turn on the others, and with a little interrogation, they’d have all the proof they needed to shut the place down.

Stefan smiled as though he was happy about it.

The next day at work was strange, to say the least. Leary looked like a deer in headlights, skittish and so obviously upset that Stefan almost wanted to shake some sense into him. He wasn’t doing himself any favors, drawing extra attention to himself.

When his lunch break finally started, Stefan counted the change he had in his pockets and had just made up his mind to go buy an egg salad sandwich from a diner a few blocks away when Leary appeared at his desk, looking like a man who hadn’t got a wink of sleep in years.

He got straight to the point.

“I need to talk to you. Privately.”

Stefan nodded, even as he ran over the possible outcomes of the situation in his head. Most likely, Leary would swear him to secrecy. Which meant asking him to break the law. _Alternatively, he might just try to kill me,_ Stefan thought. _Wouldn’t be the first time desperation drove a good man to do a bad thing._

_Hell, for all I know, he’ll want to kiss me._

Stefan was perturbed by all of these options, but he found himself agreeing to meet Leary at his apartment that evening. Leary wrote the address down for him on a scrap of paper, hands shaking the whole time.

“Bekowsky… you didn’t tell, did you?” he murmured, so softly Stefan wondered if he’d imagined it.

“No,” he said earnestly and Leary looked both surprised and relieved.

“See you tonight,” he said by way of a goodbye, and retreated to his office. Stefan stuffed the address in his pocket and worried his lower lip all the way to the diner. He bought the egg salad sandwich, but couldn’t taste it, even though he ate both halves. The haunted look in Leary’s eyes stayed with him all day, and lingered when he drove home.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

_I've heard it said that the thrill of romance_  
 _Can be like a Heavenly dream_  
 _I go to bed with a prayer_  
 _That you'll make love to me_  
 _Strange as it seems_

10 PM. Stefan sat in his Buick, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He idled about a block away from Leary’s place, a generous helping of liquid courage sitting uneasily in his gut.

 _I could turn him in right now,_ he considered. For a moment, he was tempted. He didn’t want to go up the stairs to his boss’s home. He _really_ didn’t want to talk about the fact that he'd seen him at that bar.

Doing his best to ignore the sense of dread that was building with every step he took, Stefan parked his car in the street, walked to the door, and tried it. It was locked.

_Now what? There’s no doorman to be seen._

Stefan was just about to turn and leave when the door opened. Leary poked his head out from behind it. He looked even worse than he had at the station, with a day’s growth of stubble on his chin and dark shadows under his eyes.

“Hurry up and get in here,” he hissed, but it was less of an order than it was a plea.

Leary’s apartment was comfortable, if a bit sparse. It was actually rather pleasant, which seemed strange. As lenient as Leary could be, he was still Stefan’s boss, and to imagine him coming home after work to a well-loved armchair and a collection of jazz records was almost impossible.

“Would you like anything to drink? I have coffee, scotch…”

“Coffee would be fine.”

“How do you take it?”

“Milk, no sugar.”

Leary puttered around the place while Stefan stared at his shoes. He tapped his foot along to the tune of a song he vaguely knew and tried to ignore how oppressive the tension felt. He’d never been awkward around Leary before, and was genuinely saddened by the knowledge that their relationship had been irreversibly changed.

Two cups of coffee poured, Leary returned and took a seat opposite his subordinate. They waited for the liquid to cool in silence. Stefan swallowed some too early, and concentrated on the way it burned his throat. It distracted him from the misery on Leary’s face.

“So you know,” the older man said finally.

“Yeah.”

“And you didn’t turn me in. I appreciate that.”

Stefan snorted.

“For all I know you were there undercover. It doesn’t mean anything.”

It did, and they both knew it. Leary cleared his throat, and spoke hesitantly.

“May… I ask why you… kept quiet?”

Stefan shrugged.

“Call it a moment of weakness. Why’d you go to that club, anyway?”

Leary swallowed audibly.

“Same thing.”

The silence that settled between them was thick and suffocating. Stefan, desperate to break it, said the first thing that came to mind.

“I didn’t know you were one of those.”

Leary made a broken sort of sound.

“Have you… have you always been like that?” _All the time I’ve worked with you? All the time we’ve been friends...?_

The police captain reddened, then nodded. That caught Stefan off-guard.

“And you became a cop? That’s… that’s nuts.”

Leary forced a bitter smile.

“Hiding in plain sight, you might say.”

Stefan’s mouth fell open in shock, and he wondered for a moment how many other colleagues of his were getting up to that sort of thing.

“Right.”

The threat of another long spell without noise made both men desperate for some kind of sound. Leary gestured to his record player.

“Should I put some music on?”

“That’s not a bad idea.”

“Billie Holiday?”

“Sure.”

The needle settled into the groove on the vinyl, and ‘Lover Man’ started to play, soft and warm and low.

“Thank you,” Leary blurted out suddenly, his gaze fixed on the slowly spinning record. Stefan frowned.

“Thank you? For what? Coming here and drinking all your coffee?”

Leary let out a frail echo of a laugh.

“For being… decent. Not decent. _Kind._ You had every opportunity to use this against me, and it’d only help you rise through the ranks faster if my job was available. There’s a good chance you could get it.”

“Bullshit! I wouldn’t do that.”

“I know you wouldn’t. But you _could have._ You could have done that and worse.”

Images came to Stefan’s mind, flickers of old cases he didn’t like to think about. Crimes motivated by hatred and rage. He’d heard whispers from homicide of that kind of thing every once in a while and it chilled him to the core. Men and women who’d been tortured, not just killed. Remorseless perpetrators who said they’d had it coming, they’d deserved it, and _‘don’t you get it? He was a pervert, a menace. Something had to be done!’_

“I’d never hurt you, Gordon,” Stefan said softly. Maybe it was going too far, using his first name, but it felt like the right thing to do. He rose from his seat and walked over to lay a comradely hand on his boss’s shoulder. Leary flinched and pulled away. Stefan dropped his hand.

“Sorry, I just thought…”

“No, I… I’m sorry. About all of this. You shouldn’t have to keep my secrets.”

Leary looked heartbroken. It was a face Stefan had seen before, on the young girls who sold themselves on the streets, on the drunks and the junkies who slept in the gutters. This city was full of people with that same, sad expression, but never in a million years had Stefan expected to see it on Gordon fucking Leary.

In the dim light of a single lamp, Leary’s hair looked less like copper and more like old blood. Stefan wasn’t using his head when he ran his fingers gently through it, but the shiver it earned him made him think harder than he had in years.

_He looks younger like this, with just a little light softening his features... hell, he's not even ten years my senior..._

“Why do you do it, Gordon? What makes it worth risking your freedom?”

Leary’s eyes were wide and dark, and he trembled as Stefan’s fingers traced over his cheekbone and down, settling next to his lips.

“Bekowsky, what are you –”

It was easier than Stefan thought it should be to slide his thumb over Leary’s lower lip. It wasn’t much of a show of force, but it completely silenced the other man.

“You’re a smart guy. Maybe you’re onto something.”

Stefan leaned in.

It was so gentle – gentler than any kiss he’d ever given a woman. He was barely brushing his lips over the police captain’s own, but it wrangled a tortured groan out of Leary, who reciprocated with a soft push of his tongue. Stefan let him deepen the kiss, and wasn’t that strange, not leading the way for once?

He pulled back after a while and looked down at Leary’s upturned face, his dazed expression.

“Did you like that?” he asked.

Leary floundered and managed to shake his head, but he didn’t fight when the Pole reached between them and brushed his knuckles lightly over the front of his slacks.

“You’re hard as a rock, Leary. Is that just for me? From one kiss?”

Leary keened when Stefan grabbed his hand and placed it over his own hardening prick.

“Looks like I’m enjoying it too.”

That shocked Leary out of his daze enough for him to scramble backwards, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

“God damn it, Bekowsky!”

“Stefan.”

“You’re drunk. I could t-taste it,” Leary said hoarsely.

“I’m not that drunk.”

“Get out. Go home. _Please.”_

Stefan looked at the door, then back at his boss. He responded in a hushed, but persistent tone.

“What if I want to stay?”

Gordon exhaled sharply and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Don’t do this, Bekowsky.”

“Stefan, I told you.” A pause. Then: “Didn’t you like it?”

“What do you think?” Leary hissed, throwing his hands up in frustration. “Don’t tempt me like this, it’s not worth it – I’m not worth it! Shit – you’re twenty-six years old – don’t do something you’ll regret just because you’re young enough to still be making life-altering decisions with your cock!”

Leary’s voice broke on the last word, and his face crumpled. He pushed past Stefan, tripping over his coffee table in an effort to get to his liquor cabinet, which he threw open violently. He ripped the stopper out of a bottle of scotch and managed a few swallows before he choked and coughed, staggering over to the couch, where he collapsed. He buried his head in his hands.

Stefan was at a loss. Somehow things had gone from reasonably pleasant to terribly wrong. He moved closer to the stricken redhead and stroked his face. The gesture made Leary recoil, eyes blazing, wet with tears.

“Why are you doing this?” he forced out through clenched teeth.

“Honestly? I don’t know. It feels like the right thing to do.”

“Your definition of right and wrong needs some fucking revision!” Leary spat harshly.

“Hey, don’t yell at me! It’s not like I make a habit of trading intimate touches with other men, let alone men that outrank me!”

“Then why start now?”

“You looked _sad!_ ” Stefan shouted. “Sad and hopeless like a little kid, all broken up inside! You know the job as well as I do – I see enough of that shit every day to last a hundred lifetimes – and the one time I can do something about it, the one time I can fix it, you wind up on the goddamn ceiling!”

He was shaking with anger then, his breath coming in hot bursts, and it took all his self-control to keep from swinging at Leary when the older man reached for his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, and squeezed Stefan’s fingers. It felt sick, apologies, hand-holding. It was too intimate for whatever they had been, whatever they were becoming.

“Don’t,” Stefan said, and kneeled on the floor, shuffling forward to feel the rough wool of Leary’s suit trousers with his palm. He rubbed his thigh experimentally, making the older man shudder.

“Don’t bring all that weepy stuff into this. You’re not some dame.”

Leary nodded, his breath caught in his throat.

“You’re used to dames. You… like them,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. Stefan nodded, reaching out to cup the back of Leary’s neck, where his skin was rougher and his hair was shorter than any woman’s.

“I like a lot of things.”


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

_Someday we'll meet and you'll dry all my tears_  
 _Then whisper sweet little things in my ears_  
 _Ah, huggin' and ah, kissin'_  
 _Oh, what we've been missin'_  
 _Lover man, where can you be?_

Their noses bumped as Stefan leaned in but he didn’t mind, not when Leary’s thighs spread for him, making a place for his body to fit, flush against the police captain. He felt the older man’s interest digging into his stomach, and it felt… satisfying. For once, he stood out. Cole Phelps might get accolades, but he’d never have this, never have anything close to it, and that stroked Stefan’s ego in all sorts of ways.

When his boss relented and reached for him, pulling him close, Stefan didn’t hold back. They kissed like they were starved for it, tongues and teeth and roughness. This too, was different.

Leary’s touches grew bold and hungry, and Stefan realized, as he was manhandled onto the couch, that he was out of his depth. He didn’t have long to think about it, because then there was a thigh between his legs, rubbing him _just so._ His eyes fluttered shut and he grabbed at Leary’s suit jacket, tugging at the unforgiving fabric. Leary straddled him and leaned back to shrug off the article, and Stefan took in the sight of him, blushing and breathing hard.

When his jacket hit the floor, Stefan flicked Leary’s tie.

“This too,” he suggested, and laughed as Leary fumbled with his shirt buttons and the knot of silk at his throat. It took the two of them working to divest him of both items, whereupon Stefan stuffed his hands under the older man’s undershirt. Leary grunted when the Pole’s hot palms brushed crisp chest hair and hardened nipples and ground his pelvis down reflexively.

“You like that?” Stefan murmured with wonder. It might have been the drink talking, but he felt thoroughly entertained by the new territory he was exploring. It was novel and forbidden and fulfilling in the strangest sense. The appeal was clear, and he had new understanding of the motive of the people who frequented bars like the one he’d raided. There was something in the movements of Leary’s hips, in the way his masculine voice, curling around words and sounds of pleasure was so familiar and yet so foreign. It was like smoking a Marlboro when you were used to Luckies. A cigarette was a cigarette, but there was something different in the taste, in the way the smoke teased along your tongue.

“Want you,” the older man said in what Stefan could describe only as a growl. “Want to look at you.”

He tugged Stefan’s shirt out of his pants and he got the idea, sliding out from under the police captain to unbuckle his belt. Leary retreated reluctantly and shucked off his remaining clothes with haste, and when Stefan was down to his socks and drawers he looked over and got an eyeful of Leary’s nude body.

He’d seen naked men before, in the locker rooms at the precinct, for example, but Stefan had never really taken the time to appreciate them. He’d definitely never seen another man hard, let alone hard for him.

Leary’s prick was… a prick, really. Stefan didn’t notice anything special about it. He did notice, however, the fire-red thatch of hair that framed it, and couldn’t help but appreciate the sight. It was a lighter orange than the hair on Leary’s head. Stefan stared at it, fixated.

Leary’s eyes raked over him in a predatory sort of way that was surprisingly flattering. He crawled closer, cock bouncing up against his stomach. When he was close enough, he leaned in and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to Stefan’s chest, trailing his tongue over his skin.

“Beautiful,” Leary said, or might have said. Stefan found it difficult to concentrate on speech when Leary’s mouth worked its way down to his navel. His boss’s breath teased the hair that marked a path down to his waistband. Leary’s fingers curled along its edge, a wordless plea to remove the final barrier of clothing protecting Stefan’s modesty. When the younger man didn’t protest, those fingers tugged and the fabric slid down, and off, and was thrown somewhere on the floor. Stefan didn’t notice anything after that, save the stars that exploded in his head when Leary’s mouth met his cock.

_Jesus, he’s good at that._

Suddenly, Leary was moving, pivoting on his knees and stretching out above Stefan, who was, all at once, face to face with the police captain’s erection.

“Please…” Leary moaned, canting his hips in a way that made the tip of his prick rub against Stefan’s face.

“Easy there – you’ll put an eye out with that thing,” Stefan mumbled, hesitant to actually put the organ in his mouth. Grimacing, he stuck his tongue out and touched it delicately to the side of Leary’s shaft.

“Don’t tease,” Leary snarled, pulling his own sweet suction off of Stefan’s aching cock.

“Alright, alright! Jeez, give a man a minute to get his bearings…”

Stefan tried again, this time taking the head in his mouth. Leary’s reaction was immediate – a full-body tremor that ended in a convulsive swallow of the flesh in his mouth. Stefan bucked upwards off the couch, the tip of his penis making contact with the back of Leary’s throat. The older man gagged but kept at it, and Stefan, figuring that show of dedication required reciprocity, started to suck his boss’s prick in earnest.

This kept up for some time, with Leary pausing at one point to suggest Stefan roll on top of him – something about arthritic knees. Stefan didn’t think Leary was old enough to use that line yet, but he didn’t mind the change in position – it made it easier to go at his own pace and not choke himself.

Leary started humming, a deep, delightful rumble that made Stefan see spots. A dry, slightly calloused palm came up to cradle his testicles, caressing them gently, and it had him hurtling towards the edge faster than he could speak. He came without warning down his boss’s throat.

Leary coughed, spat, and cursed.

“Couldn’t you have warned me?” he wheezed.

“Sorry. Do you want me to… keep going… or…?”

Leary paused for just a moment, thinking.

“No. No, lie back.”

There was some awkward shuffling before the two men settled: Stefan, reclining on the couch, and Leary, kneeling over him, pulling at his cock.

Stefan took this opportunity to bask in post-coital bliss, and also to notice the freckles on Leary’s shoulders, and the way his blush extended all the way down his chest. A pang of fondness had him reaching out to lend a hand, tangling his fingers in the hair above Leary’s prick and tugging faintly. Leary swore and squeezed himself and the ensuing ropes of ejaculate hit Stefan in the sternum.

His efforts no longer needed, Stefan sunk back on the couch, tired and comfortable. He felt Leary wiping them both clean with his discarded undershirt before the older man broke the silence.

“Cigarette?”

Stefan nodded.

“Ah, why the hell not? You got Luckies?”

Leary grunted an affirmative and padded over to turn out his pockets. When he located his cigarette case, and a match, he returned, and lit a cigarette for each of them.

“Do we… talk now?” Stefan asked haltingly. Leary snorted.

“Not unless you put a gun to my head... I suppose this means we’re even.”

Stefan furrowed his brow.

“What do you meant?”

“We both have secrets to keep.”

It was almost definitely the drink this time, that made that seem so funny, but Stefan chuckled regardless.

“You’re drunk, Bekowsky.”

Stefan grinned broadly and looked up at the ceiling as a man reborn. He had broken the law – the very thing he was supposed to uphold. And he’d enjoyed every damn second of it, too.

“I don’t care,” he laughed, too loudly, with his eyes watering, hysteria setting in. He put out the lit end of the cigarette with his thumb, too distracted to register the pain. “I don’t fucking care!”


End file.
